Posts Tagged ‘Obama’s coattails’

Have you ever had somebody say you can hope into one hand, and defecate into the other hand, and then see which hand gets full first? Well, we took the “hopey-crappy challenge,” and now we’ve got a giant load of crap sitting in our White House, taking the place of an actual president who can truly lead and effectively govern, ought to be.

The White House has been fond of citing turning points lately, most recently when describing the administration’s handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Now President Obama faces a turning point of his own — and not for the better.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds Obama’s approval rating to be the lowest it’s been since he took office 18 months ago. According to the poll, only 45 percent approve of the job Obama is doing in the White House, compared with 48 percent who disapprove. And the numbers only get worse from there: Sixty-two percent of respondents believe the country is on the wrong track — the highest number recorded since just before Election Day in 2008 — and just one-third believe things are going to get better, a 7-point drop since a month ago and the lowest such number in the Obama presidency.

The fallout from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill appears to be the biggest drag on Obama’s numbers. Fifty percent disapprove of his handling of the crisis — including one in four Democrats. But generally, the poll finds increasing doubts about Obama as a leader. Just 49 percent of those polled give Obama positive ratings when asked if he has “strong leadership qualities” — that’s a decline of 8 points since January and nearly 20 points from when he first took office. Less than half rate him positively when asked if he’s “honest and straightforward.”In January ’09, 63 percent gave him positive marks for “being firm and decisive in decision-making.” That number is now at 44 percent. Asked about his “ability to handle a crisis,” only 40 percent rate him positively, an 11-point drop since January. You can read the full poll results here.

Obama’s biggest problem: He’s lost the middle — the so-called independent and moderate voters who are generally given the most credit for his win back in 2008. According to the poll, 52 percent of self-described independent voters disapprove of the job Obama is doing. He’s even losing parts of his base. The poll finds Obama with 17 percent disapproval among Democrats — the highest number of his presidency.

None of this is good news for Democrats up for re-election this fall. Beleaguered Democrats had been counting on Obama’s coattails to help them, as polls have also showed a historic trendaway from the Democratic Party. According to this new poll, the GOP has a 2-point edge over Democrats in the generic congressional ballot — but among voters who describe themselves as most interested in the 2010 midterms, the GOP jumps to a 21-point lead over Democrats.

— Holly Bailey is a senior politics writer for Yahoo! News.

Did you catch that red emboldened part about the Republicans currently having a 21-point lead over Democrats when you count the people who are actually going to vote?

Democrats had a 60 vote supermajority in the United States Senate. They could pass ANYTHING. And they used their power to pass shockingly terrible legislation that will haunt Americans for decades to come. The American people corrected that disastrous mistake the first chance they had, but Democrats STILL have an overwhelming majority of 59 votes. And they have a gigantic majority in the House of Representatives. And yet they are such disastrous failures, and are in such total and complete disarray, that they can’t even pass a budget. Which allows Democrats to continue their insane, destructive spending divorced from any checks or balances until the people finally get to hold them accountable in November.

Democrats have blamed Bush every step of the way. They have acted like a child who comes to school every single day for a year and a half and tells the teacher that the dog ate his homework.